Alexander easily could have pleaded that both he and his friend had drunk too much wine and that
Cleitus had provoked him—which was true.
But, to his credit, Alexander made no excuses for his crime. Even if he had not taken responsibility
for the disaster at the river Polytimetus, Alexander took his full share of the blame for the murder of
the man who had saved his own life.
What could not be avoided either by sophistry or repentance, however, was the public revelation
of the trouble in the Macedonian camp that had led to the crime. At the fatal dinner party, simmering
tensions between the older generation of Macedonian soldiers and their younger counterparts,
including many of Alexander’s closest friends, finally boiled over into public brawling and violence.
After his sense of self-esteem was restored, Alexander undoubtedly recognized that there was deeply
felt opposition both to his personal beliefs and to his policy of orientalizing. Within a year that
opposition would give rise to another conspiracy against his life.
CHAPTER 16
The End of the Revolts
THE BURIAL OF CLEITUS
Those who opposed Alexander’s policies might have rallied around Cleitus’ murder. But no such
thing occurred. Indeed, the Macedonians formally declared that Cleitus’ death had been justified and
even would have refused him burial had not Alexander himself ordered it to be done. Ordinary
Macedonians saw Cleitus’ death as the unfortunate outcome of a drunken brawl, one of the all-too-
predictable results of the ritual drinking parties frequently celebrated by the Macedonian nobles.
Amyntas, the son of Nicolaus, was appointed to replace Cleitus as governor of Bactria. The
Macedonian soldiers marched onward. There was campaigning to be done and, on the whole, the
Macedonians were better fighters than drinkers. Or, at least, campaigning resulted in more casualties
among their enemies than among their friends. Alexander and the Macedonians therefore turned their
attention toward those who had been responsible for the massacre at the Polytimetus.
THE DEATH OF SPITAMENES
While Alexander and the Macedonians drank themselves senseless in Maracanda, Spitamenes and the
Massagetae had had some successes in the north, capturing one of Alexander’s garrisons and
besieging Zariaspa (Balkh). A few of the Companion cavalry, eighty mercenary cavalry, and some of
the royal pages who had been left at Zariaspa attacked Spitamenes, stripping him and his forces of
their booty, but they were ambushed on their way back from the punitive raid. Seven Companions and
sixty mercenaries lost their lives. Aristonicus the harpist also died there, “with more courage than a
harpist might have.”
Craterus was sent out to track down the Massagetae and, in a fierce engagement, 150 of the
Scythians were killed before the survivors fled into the desert.
With two battalions of the Macedonian phalanx, four hundred Companion cavalry, the mounted
javelin men, and the Bactrians and Sogdians attached to Amyntas, the commander Coenus was
ordered to winter in Sogdiana, to protect the region, and to try to ambush Spitamenes. Gathering up an
additional force of poverty-stricken Scythian horsemen from around Gabae (on the border of
Sogdiana and the land of the Massagetae), Spitamenes attacked Coenus but was decisively defeated,
losing 800 cavalry. Most of the surviving Sogdians and Bactrians with Spitamenes then surrendered
to Coenus.
Alexander himself had marched on southward to Nautaca (probably Karshi in modern Uzbekistan),
about halfway between Maracanda and the Rock of Sogdiana, where the army was rested during the
winter of 328/7. Sisimithres, the local ruler, had established his forces in a strong defensive position,
blocking the defile that gave access to the plains. The Macedonians built a causeway across the defile
at its narrowest point using trees and rocks, and when they brought up their siege towers and engines,
Sisimithres and his followers gave up. Alexander sacrificed to Athena Nike (Victory) and restored
Sisimithres to his rule of the area. While Alexander was engaged with mopping up the remaining
rebels in the area, Philip, the brother of Lysimachus, died; so too did Alexander’s old friend Erigyius.
When Alexander returned to his camp both men were given magnificent funerals. Erigyius’ grave was
a long way away from his native Mytilene.
As for Spitamenes, his wife, grown tired of a life on the run, decided to take matters into her own
hands. After Spitamenes attended a banquet, he was carried into his room half asleep, torpid from
excessive drinking and eating. As soon as his wife saw that he was sound asleep, she drew the sword
she had hidden under her clothes and cut off Spitamenes’ head. She then handed over to a slave her
ex-husband’s head.
With the slave in attendance, Spitamenes’ wife, her clothes still drenched in blood, then went to the
Macedonian camp. She sent a message to Alexander saying that there was a matter about which he
should hear from her own lips. Alexander immediately had her escorted in.
Seeing her spattered with blood, Alexander had assumed that she wanted to complain about some
kind of assault. He told her to state what she wanted; she asked only that the slave, whom she had told
to stand in the doorway, now be brought in. The slave, we are told, had aroused some suspicion
because he seemed to have something concealed under his clothes. When the guards searched him, he
showed them what he was hiding: Spitamenes’ head. Pallor, however, had disfigured Spitamenes’
features so that a firm identification was not possible.
Arrian tells a different but no less chilling version of the story. Putting self-interest ahead of
loyalty, the Massagetae themselves cut off Spitamenes’ head and sent it to Alexander. They hoped by
this act to keep Alexander away from them.
CLEANING UP
Dataphernes, the other ringleader of the rebellion, was imprisoned by the Dahae, who surrendered
him and themselves to Alexander. By mid-winter Stasanor and Phrataphernes returned to Nautaca,
having successfully suppressed the rebels in Parthia and Areia. Phrataphernes was sent to the
Mardians and Tapurians with orders to bring back the satrap Autophradates, who had been sent for by
Alexander but had ignored the summons. Stasanor was dispatched to the Drangians as governor, and
Atropates was sent along to Media as satrap to replace Oxydates since Alexander believed that
Oxydates was willfully neglecting his duty. Stamenes also was sent back to Babylon since Mazaeus
was reported to have died. Sopolis, Epokillos, and Menidas were ordered to return to Macedon, to
bring back a new force.
These measures are worth noting in detail for two reasons. First, they imply that Alexander now
believed that the revolts in Bactria and Sogdiana had been snuffed out after two years of fighting.
They also signify, already in the winter of 327, Alexander’s insistence that governors do their jobs as
ordered. After his return from India, Alexander replaced or executed more governors, whom he
accused of maladministration, and this period has been called a reign of terror. But, in fact, there was
no such discrete phase. Alexander was never willing to put up with insubordination or administrative
incompetence, and he was making that clear by 327.
To keep the restive indig
enes of Bactria and Sogdiana quiet, Alexander established a large
garrison under the satrap Amyntas, who was given 10,000 infantry and 3,500 cavalry to keep the
peace. The king also incorporated natives into his own cavalry and in 327 gave orders for 30,000
native youths, the so-called epigoni, or successors, to be taught Greek and to be trained to use
Macedonian weapons for eventual service in a native phalanx. The establishment of this indigenous
levy shows that by the spring of 327 at the latest Alexander was planning to incorporate “barbarian”
troops into his army for future use. He was no mere military adventurer, interested only in fleecing
Asia, as he often has been portrayed. Even in 327, Alexander was planning for the future conquest of
the rest of Asia and Europe, and he meant to do it with mixed levies of European and Asian troops.
THE MARRIAGE TO ROXANE
Now that military matters had been resolved for the time being, it was the moment, just before he
embarked upon his invasion of India, for Alexander to settle affairs of the heart. In the spring of 327,
in his twenty-ninth year and thousands of miles from home, Alexander married Roxane, the beautiful
daughter of the Bactrian nobleman Oxyartes. Oxyartes and his daughter, it will be recalled, had been
taken captive after the fall of the Rock of Sogdiana in 328.
The ceremony was performed in Macedonian style. Bread, the sacred symbol of betrothal among
the Macedonians, was brought in and then cut with a sword. Alexander and his new Asian father-in-
law then tasted bread from the same loaf.
Historians have rightly pointed out the political advantages of this marriage for Alexander: his new
father-in-law was an important and powerful ally in a restive area of his empire. To violate his
daughter would have been out of the question and would not have been consistent with Alexander’s
general attitude toward women. A marriage to the daughter of an Asian noble also might have been
intended as a signal to both Macedonians and Asians, in the wake of the murder of Cleitus, that
Alexander had no intention of backing away from his policy of orientalizing, even on a personal level.
As always, Alexander led by example. But the purely political or pragmatic explanation for
Alexander’s first marriage is not persuasive.
Alexander certainly could have married any Macedonian, Greek, or Persian woman (or women) he
had met before or after 336. Marriage to any one or more of these women might have brought greater
political benefits at times when Alexander’s prospects were far less secure. And yet he had chosen
not to marry any of the many noblewomen he had encountered from Greece to Bactria.
Nor can it be maintained that Alexander did not marry until it was politically necessary because he
was not attracted to women. Since 332 he had kept a mistress, Barsine (the daughter of Artabazus and
the ex-wife of Memnon), by whom he now had a son, Herakles. He also had retained the services of
Darius’ harem after the Persian king’s death. Although Alexander probably had sexual relationships
with men, it is a myth that he was not sexually attracted to women as well. Clearly he was. The
question is why, given all of his opportunities, Alexander chose to make Roxane his first wife.
Moreover, Alexander’s first wife was a foreigner, and a “barbarian” (though possessed with a
dignity “rare” among the barbarians). Such a marriage was bound to provoke grumbling, and it did. In
response, Alexander was careful to point out to the grumblers that Achilles himself had shared his
bed with a captive, Briseis. The simple explanation here is most convincing: this was a love match;
Roxane in fact had caught Alexander’s eye when she was performing in some kind of dance at a
banquet. Since he would not, and could not, simply take her, he decided to marry her. There is also no
doubt that the marriage was consummated, for they had a son, Alexander IV, whose name indicates
that Alexander intended him to be his heir and the inheritor of his empire.
In the future, Alexander would marry more foreign women, using their native marriage ceremony.
Moreover, he would make it worth the while of his friends to do so in turn. A true son of Zeus could
break the molds, even if those around him could not understand why—or did not want to. But that
particular mold would be broken only four years later, when the king returned to Persia. First,
however, Alexander prepared to take his new bride on what promised to be one of the most exotic but
dangerous honeymoons in nuptial history: the conquest of India.
CHAPTER 17
One Kiss the Poorer
THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM
Alexander now spent two months in winter quarters, presumably enjoying the pleasures of married
life (328/7). During this hiatus, Alexander and his officers probably put together the detailed plans for
the invasion of India. Once these plans had been fleshed out in the late spring of 327, Alexander led
his forces into the region called Gazaba. On the third day out the army was caught in a lightning storm
followed by a torrential cloudburst that showered them with hail. Finally the men broke ranks and
wandered about aimlessly through the woods. The storm, we are told, claimed the lives of 2,000
soldiers and camp followers.
Sisimithres brought pack animals and 2,000 camels plus sheep and herds of cattle to help relieve
the army. After giving him a public commendation, Alexander ravaged the land of the Sacae and gave
30,000 head of cattle to Sisimithres in recompense for saving the army.
After defeating the only rebels left in Pareitacene, Alexander headed south toward Bactra.
Craterus’ forces too made for Bactra after subduing some local rebels. In the spring of 327 Bactra
was to be the assembly point for the Macedonian invasion of India.
PROSKYNESIS
In Bactra, Alexander attempted to introduce the custom of proskynesis, or prostration, to his court. In
Persia, the act of what the Greeks called proskynesis might involve bowing forward and blowing a
kiss from the tip of the fingers (as depicted on a Persian treasury relief), or it might entail actually
prostrating oneself before the king. Prostration of either kind was understood in Persia as a
fundamentally social and secular gesture, performed by all social inferiors to their social superiors
right up to the king.
In the Greek tradition, proskynesis was usually done by individuals who were standing up with
their arms raised to the sky and their palms forward. Sometimes, however, prostration was performed
kneeling. Among the Greeks, however, proskynesis was understood as a sacred act, only to be
performed before gods (or their images).
It is not clear that all Greeks understood the social and secular significance of the Persian practice
of prostration. Some Greek authors, such as the early fifth-century Athenian tragedian Aeschylus,
seem to have believed that the Persian form of prostration was an act of worship. Later writers
clearly understood it as a social custom—which nevertheless evoked feelings of disgust and
superiority among Greeks. Indeed, Alexander’s teacher Aristotle regarded the Persian form of
prostration as a specifically barbarian act.
There also was a strong imperative in Greece against performing the act in front of another man,
even a king. When Spartan ambassadors visited the court of the fifth-century Persian king Xerx
es, for
instance, and were being pressured to prostrate themselves (in the Persian style) before the king, they
replied that it was not their custom to prostrate themselves before any human. Greek authors such as
Xenophon regarded the Persian form of prostration as inconsistent with the freedom of a citizen.
With this background in mind, we now can turn to the two versions of what happened when
Alexander attempted to introduce prostration in the late spring of 327. The first version involves a
private drinking party, at which, Alexander’s chamberlain Chares records,
after he [Alexander] had drunk, [he] passed the cup to one of his friends, who took it and rose so
as to face the shrine of the household; next he drank in his turn, then made obeisance to
Alexander, kissed him and resumed his place on the couch. All the guests did the same in
succession, until the cup came to Callisthenes. The king was talking to Hephaestion and paying
no attention to Callisthenes and the philosopher, after he had drunk, came forward to kiss him. At
this Demetrius, whose surname was Pheido, called out, “Sire, do not kiss him; he is the only one
who has not made obeisance to you.” Alexander therefore refused to kiss him, and Callisthenes
exclaimed in a loud voice, “Very well then, I shall go away the poorer by a kiss.”
To this basic account Arrian adds the important detail that Alexander had passed the cup first to
those with whom an agreement about the act of prostration had been reached ahead of the party.
Hephaestion later claimed that Callisthenes had been among those who had promised to perform
prostration, but that the historian had reneged on his agreement at the party.
Whether Callisthenes went back on his word or not, clearly the introduction of prostration at this
private symposium was orchestrated in advance, although perhaps not everyone was informed about
what was to take place. The introduction of prostration was a kind of trial balloon, popped by an
overly observant diner.
The plot of the second version depends entirely on prostration being planned in advance. It had
been agreed by Alexander with the sophists and the Persian and Median noblemen that the subject of
prostration should be broached at another drinking party. Anaxarchus began the discussion. He
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